SHOES AND SOCKS

As previously mentioned, shoes were rationed during the war. Before we talk about it, Old Trunks needs to ask, how many pair of shoes do you buy in a year?

Americans were limited to 3 pairs of leather shoes per year when shoe rationing went into affect. Would shoe rationing be seen as a problem for the Anderson family? With four children in the family would they run through a lot of shoe coupons? Would they put a lot of rubber half-soles on shoes, or that gummy substance which could spread over holes in crepe soled shoes?

The military program, already taking about a third of the available leather, called for more leather goods during the last half of 1944 than during the first half. And the leather supply was getting tighter: that year the U.S. would have only between 23 million and 24 million hides for both civilians and armed forces, as against 19 million in 1939 for civilians alone.

We need to think in terms of style available. High heeled shoes and evening slippers where made for women, patent leather shoes and sandals for men, and scraps were used for bows as decorations.

Use any color leather. (Previously permitted: black, white, Army russet, town brown, natural colors.) Still barred: two-tone leather shoes.

What about nylons? Did all women do as mother did and paint a black seam up the back of her leg with an eyebrow pencil? Nylon was needed for parachutes! I wonder what would happen if these ladies got out in the rain?

How many pair of shoes did you have at one time? I got two pair a year, one at the beginning of the school year and another sometime around March. The only others were either sneakers for gym OR snow boots. Mother, on the other hand, had a closet floor lined with shoes. What I didn't know at the time was it was, for the most part,it was a collection. That is, they were collected, or at least that is what she said. I can understand that because an eight year old wanted to know why I had so many crystals and I told her it was a collection. Perhaps, little people have a hard time understanding the over time concept.

Mother dressed up. She had dress up shoes. The story is that she walked pigeon toed when they were first married and Daddy bought Mother her first pair of heels and taught her how to walk in them. Mother had a long stride, she would start walking and really move. It is no wonder she would tell me to walk to the side. I took short steps!

Daddy had dress shoes and Wellington's and a pair of blood colored tie shoes. His shoes never wore out. It was during the era when one used paste polish. I didn't know HOW to polish with paste but I did try and rather than rath on me, he took them to the shoe repair shop and had the dry crusted polish removed.

My sweet Thomas stated that his shoes were always bought with room to grow. Ever have that? Slip and slide until they fit, wear them until your toes crunched? He bought a dozen pair of sneakers all at once before I moved here. When he opens a new box they are called his 'town shoes', the previous become his 'boat shoes', the 'boat shoes' become his 'yard shoes' and the 'yard shoes' are discarded. One summer, in his 'town shoes' we went to a zoo like animal farm. A goat stepped on his bright white 'town shoes'. Alas, they were forever, and still are known as his 'goat shoes'. And yes, he still does have new ones in the closet.

Do you remember a shoe shop in your town? Do you remember the smell of the shop? I LOVED the smell of dye. Coloring shoes was a big thing. If you fell into a mud puddle in your white Easter shoes, you just had them colored navy. If your buff suede got clamp marks from roller skates, they were colored black, (never mind the suede being flat and the shoes being really ugly).

Considering what a nice job the shoe repair shop on LaBree Avenue next to the Sam Plow Barbershop did, I decided that in order to get the color navy and the color red I wanted, I would have shoes dyed. I bought two pair of leather shoes and brought them in to have them dyed. I did not expect to have dye slopped on the inside and on the bottom of the shoe. The leather itself is fine, just don't take them off so people can see the messy job.

Shoes do collect. Really. If you are brand oriented, they last forever. Well, of course they do if you never wear them! It is the time of the year when I change out fall/winter for spring/summer. Some of them have seen very light use, yet the toes will be stuffed with tissue and put together in a laundry basket until next fall. Out will come the sandals and the canvas.

What are the most important shoes I have? A good pair of leather sneakers to fish in. There is forward motion in your shoe when you cast and cast and cast for bass. Can't fish in sandals, the flies bite my toes!

I am thinking about mother and how alarming it was to see her wearing SAS. I just never thought she would get to the point where high heels were no longer part of her royal carriage. I am thinking about Ella and all the shoes she had in boxes in her house when the house was cleaned out and sold. I am thinking about the number of shoes all of us collect over time and the new shoes we buy to replace them only to find they don't feel quite the same. And I am wondering if I will ever be at the age where I will have elastic shoe laces because the oxfords I need to help me balance will be the same shoes I can no longer tie myself.

But for now, I will slip into my open heeled, closed toe County Finn's and my suede Merrill's, knowing those black shoes need to be set aside until fall only to find something in the closet that feels like my foot is being in a rocking chair.

Shoe fetish? What's that?

Nylons? What are those?

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